My kid’s school has a one-way circular drop off area in front of the school. It’s 2 lanes wide – the left lane is for through traffic to get to the parking lot and the right lane is for drop offs.
Here’s some open letters to the various morons I see every morning:
Dear Miss Soccer Mom Twit – The right lane is supposed to be used to drop off your kids. Don’t sit there for 10 minutes looking over all the papers your precious daughter just gave you. If it’s gonna take a while, pull over to the parking lot so the people behind you can pull forward. And you don’t have to watch your daughter walk ALL the way to the school door’s. I bet she can find them on their own. Drop the kid off and move on.
Dear Mr. Redneck – I love your pickup with the extra loud exhaust, then big number 3 on the back window, and the Calvin pissing on the Chevy logo. You are so cool. So why do you stop right in the middle of the freaking drive to drop your kid off? You’re blocking both lanes of traffic.
Dear Miss Clueless – There are signs all over telling you the left lane is for through traffic only. So why do you insist on stopping and letting your son get out there where he has to cross traffic in the right lane to get to the sidewalk. I guess you’re too important and busy to wait in line like everyone else.
General rant – the drop off area is about 100 yards long (about the length of a football field). It can easily accommodate 10-15 cars dropping kids off all at once. BUT NO – everyone has to stop in the first 10 yards backing everyone else up. So what if your kid has to walk an extra 20 or 30 yards to the front door. PULL ALL THE WAY FORWARD SO EVERYONE ELSE CAN DROP THEIR KIDS OFF TOO. This is true for the bus driver too. I’m willing to give them some leeway since buses are about as easy to drive as a tank. But at least pull all the way to the end so the cars behind you can drop their kids off at the sidewalk without waiting for the entire bus to unload.
There’s a ton of others too…the driver who’s in a hurry and drives 30 miles an hour in the driveway with kids running everywhere (an accident waiting to happen)…the moron who PARKS AND LEAVES their car in the drop off lane…the idiots who skip the drive way all together and make their kids get out in the parking lot to walk across the driveway…
Then there are the parents who skip the driveway AND the parking lot and park on the street, open their doors into traffic and leave them open, and have their kids get out on the traffic side into the street and a procession of cars . . .
Honestly! The kids themselves are pretty traffic and safety-savvy; it’s the parents who are the buttheads.
The school probably needs to get one of their principles or teachers to direct cars. You’d be surprised at how obedient people become when ordered to do something by a 50+ neatly dressed schoolmarm. Probably reminds them of someone from their past…
When I drop my kid off, I slow down, kick open the passenger door and yell “roll, son, roll!” Sure he’s a little banged up, but I’ve shaved 7 seconds off my time this year alone.
What grinds me is the kids who ride all the way to school, get out of mommy’s car, then turn back and start messing with their backpack - which is still in the car! Or, they get out, turn around and initiate a long, drawn-out conversation with mom through the open door!
While I wait, precious seconds of my irreplaceable time ticking away . . .
These kids will grow up to be the ones in the line in front of me at the grocery store who start looking for their checkbooks after the checker has rung everything up. . .
Why the hell can’t people make their kids take the fucking bus? I took the bus for 12 years why can’t kids these days? Might as well save money on busses and make the parents bring the kids to school from now on.
Maybe you should try what we do at my kids’ school: Parent volunteers to direct traffic. Every morning there’s a mom or dad out in front making sure that the drop-off runs smoothly.
I like your idea, Pochacco and I’ll be the first one to sign up if I get to go evil things to the people that do stupid stuff. Could I carry a paintball gun and shoot the cars the do stupid stuff? That way, everyone will know the same idiots are coming by watching out for the red splotches dotting their car.
As for the bus, our system says you can’t take the bus if you live within a 1 mile radius of the school. Since my kids would have to cross multiple busy streets to get to school and it’s on my way to work anyway, it’s just easier and safer to drop them off. But I promise I follow the rules and only use the right lane to drop my kids off and I practically kick them out of the car to make sure we don’t make anyone behind us wait.
That’s nothing. You ever see a C-130 doing a cargo drop? That’s what I plan to do if I have kids. Pack em in the trunk with a bigass parachute, then haul ass. If we time it right, we’ll go past at high speed, I’ll pop the trunk, the chute’ll open and drag em out, and I won’t even have to stop.
Many school districts only provide bus service if you live a certain minimum distance from the school. Where I grew up, we were in a dense enough suburb where a lot of people lived within the minimum radius, but not quite dense enough to have any useful public transportation. Result: Lots of cars lined up dropping the kids off in the morning.
My mom was fairly efficient about this, though. Instead of pulling into the drop-off area, she’d just pull up at the side of the road about a block from the school. It had a good traffic light with a crossing guard, and I walked the rest of the way. (Unless it was raining. She wasn’t totally evil.)
Maybe they live a block too close to the school for the bus to pick them up, but there’s no way their first-grader could walk a mile to school. Maybe the bus comes at 5:30 AM and they couldn’t possibly get their kids out out of the house by then. Maybe they live across town and for whatever reason their kid goes to this school, but they won’t bus them.
As an older sibling part-time chauffeur, I had similar gripes with such parents. (My brother is eight years younger than I am.) Idiots.
I am spared this sort of irritation but only because, as someone else suggested, the school cracks the whip.
There are teachers directing traffic at my son’s school. THEY open the doors and escort the kids from the cars. Two cars pull up at a time, two teachers extract the kids, those cars leave, two more pull forward.
Today some kid further back in line started to get out of the car and they made her get back in and wait. I think for them it’s a big safety issue, but it’s also a matter of not FUCKING WITH a system that works.
And Edward the Head: This is a private school. But at any rate, I’m not sure I’d put my 4-yr-old on a bus. Dropping him off every day sucks, I’ll admit.
You know, I just Know that OP is about me, but they got some of the facts wrong. The street at my son’s school is a one-way public street that runs through an entire neighbourhood. And yes, I park my car and walk my child to his homeroom every morning. The legions of Ford Aerostorm Trooper Brumhilda’s haven’t anal-retentively organized the street into ‘Drop Off’ lanes yet, but I can see it coming. So, before you start barking “You Vust Drop Off Der Kinder Dat Way, Schvinehund, Or No Drop Offs For You!!!” , you better read my Counter Rules.
(Yes, my tuition bill is just as much as yours, so I have just as much a right to impose rules as you do)
Counter Rule#1: This is a public street. Or, as Johnny Cochrane says, “If that curb’s not yellow, You Go-To-Hell-O”. I’ll park any damn where it’s legal to, and if you don’t like it, Pound Sand.
Counter Rule#2: You see that white paint on the asphalt between the parking lot & the school? That’s called a Crosswalk. Say it with me now…Crrrrooooossss-Waaaaallllk. See, I knew you could. You see, there are people who don’t eject their children out of their cars like unwanted turds. Those people park and Walk their children into the school over the crosswalk. And pedestrians have the right of way (Google Westlaw & buy a subscription). Late to get your nails done? I don’t care: Its a Crosswalk and you’ll wait until its clear before you fly outta here like a bat back to Hell. (Or I will take your down your plate & sign a complaint)
If I ever have kids, I’m going to build one of the cannons out of PVC tubing and I’ll just launch them to school from the backyard.
I won’t even have to start the car.
Were you at my school this morning thewiz? Because you sure sound like it. Except our drop off lane can only fit about 4 cars. At least 50% of the time, you get a moron who won’t pull all the way up, and just takes the first spot. And lets their kids take all the friggen time in the world to get going. And our principal, who stands out there supposedly directing traffic, just smiles inanely.
The school just tried to make the exit for the drop off a right turn only. Never mind that there are two lanes, and a left turn can be safely made. And that the school is on the east side of the city, and damn near no one works to the right. Fuck em. I can turn left out of a driveway. I take less time to do that, because I pull all the way forward and let cars in behind me. Turning right makes the majority of traffic have to turn left up the road on a busy 45 mph street with no stop signs. Not gonna happen, especially since you changed the earliest drop off time to 7:50. Which is just delightful for those of us that work 25 minutes away.
quietman1920–you’re ok…you can do whatever you want on the public streets. What I’m talking about is the driveway into the school itself. You’re actually performing a public service by parking on the street and walking your kids…keeps traffic flowing in the driveway.
I’ve thought about attaching rubber tubing on the minivan side door and shooting them out as soon as the door opens but haven’t gotten around to it yet.
Ah yes. Drop-off time at the local private elementary school, aka the Monster Truck Rally. Maximum payload: 2000lbs. Average payload: 1 50lb. second-grader.
Parents at my daughter’s school are actually pretty polite about dropoffs, but I sense that it’s been a long fight. Something about the hefty concrete pylons along the entrance tells me this, even if they are planted with pink petunias.